1. Before you get pierced, call the state board of health and make sure the parlor you’re planning on using passes their inspections. Once there, does your piercer touch anything once s/he has gloves on? Does s/he get equipment straight out of the autoclave? Happy piercings start with happy piercers.

2. For the first several hours, I leave the piercing alone. Clip your hair so that it won’t touch the piercing, avoid cell phones on that ear, whatever it takes. After a few hours, the initial ouch will go have reduced to a dull “new piercing” almost-pain and the massive redness should ease.

3. After a few hours, snag a clean tea mug and a towel. I use fairly warm water, but as long as its lukewarm you’re set. Add a pinch of sea salt (table salt contains iodine, which will sting), stir, and head to a table or countertop. You want to immerse the new piercing in the water for a good 5 minutes. When I pierced my nose, I used a shot glass with just a few grains of salt. The warm salt water helps soften any crusty buildup, so that after soaking you can carefully use a Q-tip to remove them. I dip the q-tip in the saline to help prevent it catching on crusty bits that don’t want to move. If there is a scab or crusty “lymph” that doesn’t come loose LEAVE IT ALONE. You don’t want to start bleeding or tear skin.

4. After the salt soak, I use a cotton ball or soft washcloth to pat the area near the piercing dry. I suggest not actually drying the piercing itself. I then grab a clean q-tip and apply a home mixed oil to lube up the piercing and keep it happy. I’ll list the recipe below.

5. Brand new piercings will need a soak 2-3 times a day, and I oil up whenever the metal feels “tight” in the new hole. Piercings I’ve had for years I still soak once a month or so to keep them happy.

6. Side note on tongue piercings – try to avoid any alcohol based mouthwashes. Aside from the ouch factor, you are dealing with an open wound. Alcohol on it can slow the healing process, tho it will keep it cleaner. I opt for a witchhazel and spearmint based mouthwash. The witchhazel can help reduce the swelling, and the spearmint helps kill germs.

7. If a piercing does get crabby at me, I’ll dunk a black tea bag in hot water and put it over the piercing for 5ish minutes. The tea leaves (and the tannins in them) can help draw out infection.

8. The biggest thing with piercings is honestly to leave them alone. Our hands are covered in germs most of the day, and touching the piercing is a bad idea. While some twisting and turning of the piercing is needed to clean it, that’s why I avoid soap that has to be washed back out. The more you move a new piercing, the more you risk tearing the skin and having to start the healing process from scratch.

Oil Recipe

I mix about 3 oz at a time, in a resealable glass bottle. I use distilled essential oils.

10ish drops eucalyptus oil. It is naturally antimicrobial/antibacterial and has been shown to lower asthma swelling.
10ish drops spearmint oil. Mostly this one just smells good, but there are a few studies that show it may have minor anti fungal properties.
10ish drops of lavender oil. This also smells good, but has been shown to have pain relieving effects.

I then fill the remainder of the bottle with cold pressed avacado/jojoba oil or almond oil. That’s mostly a carrier as the pure essential oils can sting. Shake well before each use.

I have been known to add a very small amount of feverfew or boneset extract for their abilities to promote healing, but these can both be toxic, depending on the dose. I use them under the care of a MD trained in herbal medicine and DO NOT recommend use without a doctor’s guidance.

1) If a piercing red or crusty, it’s infected. Wrong! You just had a piece of metal shoved through your skin; of course it’s going to be pissed off at you for a while. If the piercing is not new, redness and lymph are usually caused by irritation, which can come from cheap earrings, snagging the piercing on something, etc. New and irritated piercings leak lymph, which is a clear fluid that becomes crusty when it dries. People often confuse lymph with pus, which is opaque and yellowish and IS a sign of infection. Irritation isn’t infection, but irritation does make it easier to catch an infection. Think about it: how would cheap jewelry cause an infection? It doesn’t- it causes irritation.

2) Clean new ear piercings with antibacterial creams. Nope! If you’re keeping your piercing clean like you should, all antibacterial creams will do is irritate the piercing with their added ingredients. They’re really not necessary, not to mention the resistant bacteria that they can breed. Especially don’t use hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol- these harsh chemicals actually destroy new cells. Instead, you should clean a new piercing with gentle soap or soak it in mild saltwater, and do so once a day at most, unless you’re playing around in dumpsters.

3) Rotate new piercings 3x/day. Don’t do this! Every time you touch the piercing, you’re exposing it to dirt, germs, and residues, and moving the jewelry around tears away the delicate healing tissue, causing scarring and prolonging healing time. Your skin won’t “stick” to jewelry unless there is something very, very wrong with the jewelry design.

4) Gun piercings are safer and hurt less. Definitely not true. Look at the tip of a piercing earring sometime- it is quite blunt. This is the point that is basically being forced through your ear. Though needles can be scary to some people, they’re much sharper and therefore cause less trauma to the tissue. A skilled piercer can move a needle just as fast as a piercing gun can, and unlike piercing guns, which can barely be cleaned at all, a new, sterile needle is used for each needle piercing. Would you rather be pierced by a skilled, trained professional or a college student at their summer job?

Piercings are very often misunderstood. For one no piercing should ever be done with a gun. None. That “cleaner” that they give you at mall stores is no good. A sea salt soak with warm water is a much better option. Most places do not recommend that you turn your earrings as it tears healing skin and can push lymph and bacteria into the piercing. Soaking the piercing with warm water and sea salt will loosen crusties.

Also, many times you should not remove a piercing if you have an infection. The post acts as a drain and without it, the infection can become trapped and abscess. Many people think that they have infections but they are actually experiencing a reaction to the material in the jewelry or from over cleaning.

I would suggest that anyone interested in a piercing (even if it’s just an ear lobe piercing) visit the Association of Professional Piercers (www.safepiercing.org) and Tribalectic. (www.tribalectic.com)
(I am not paid to endorse these sites, just so you know.)